Tackle waste and climate crisis as one issue, Agency says

Liz Parkes spoke via weblink at letsrecycle.com’s inaugural Net Zero Conference, held at the home of legal firm Pinsent Masons in London.

She said the waste sector was responsible for about 5% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, which include not just carbon dioxide (CO₂) but also methane and fluorinated gases.

While Ms Parkes said there had been “really good progress over the last 10 years”, including the shift away from landfill, she said the rate at which waste sector emissions were falling was “plateauing”.

However, she noted that public awareness of the climate crisis had increased during the various Covid-19-related lockdowns, with 37% of people now making the link between food waste and the climate.

“This is, to me, about consumption and this is an invitation to think differently,” Ms Parkes told the conference. “We have an opportunity to put these two issues together, and, if we do, they will become easier mountains to climb.”

She added: “Net Zero is the thing that could really make the circular economy real.”

Food waste

Ms Parkes looked in more detail at global food waste, which would be responsible for the third most greenhouse gas emissions on the planet if it were a country, she said, after the US and China.

A third of all food produced is wasted from farm to fork, she said, while 70% of wasted food comes from homes.

Under the Resources and Waste Strategy, all local authorities in England must offer free separate food waste collections from 2023, but much remains unclear about the practicalities, including when funding for the service will be available to councils (see letsrecycle.com story).

‘No such thing as waste’

Another to speak at Pinsent Masons was Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North, member of the Environmental Audit Committee, and vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Net Zero.

Mr Gardiner told the conference he believed there was too great a focus on waste, saying: “There is no waste – there are only resources, but sometimes in the wrong place.”

Mr Gardiner made his comments in response to the president of the Chartered Institution for Wastes Management (CIWM), Dr Adam Read, who said in November that the waste sector was “overlooked and left with no seat at the table” at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow (see letsrecycle.com story).

Mr Gardiner said that, to reach Net Zero by 2050 and reduce emissions, it was “not just about decarbonising the energy sector”, but also about moving to a circular economy where fewer materials were needed.

“The goal of the recycling and resource industry must precisely be to reduce the extent to which the biosphere is transformed adversely,” he said.

Mr Gardiner said there would never be a circular economy if virgin materials continued to be cheaper than recycled materials.

Net Zero UK

Professor Mark Maslin of University College London spoke at the conference to give an academic perspective on how a Net Zero UK might look.

CO₂ in the atmosphere has risen every year since it was first measured in 1958, he said. The sea level rises by 3-5mm every year, he added, while 2016 and 2020 were the warmest years ever experienced by humans.

If it achieved Net Zero by 2050, Professor Maslin said, the UK should have a circular economy which saw all waste recycled or sent for energy recovery.

To do so, he suggested, the country must regulate product design for longer lifespans, as the EU does.

He said: “To achieve Net Zero, we need government, corporations, and individuals to step up.”